The Eternal Husband and Other Stories

“That signifies horns, sir,” Pavel Pavlovich snapped, finally taking his fingers from his forehead. “That is… your horns?”

“My very own splendid acquisition!” Pavel Pavlovich again made a terribly nasty grimace. They both fell silent.

“You’re a brave man, anyhow!” said Velchaninov.

“Because I showed you the horns? You know what, Alexei Ivanovich, you’d do better to treat me to something! I treated you in T———for a whole year, sir, every blessed day… Send for a little bottle, my throat’s dry.”

“With pleasure; you should have said so long ago. What’ll you have?”

“Why you? make it we—we’ll drink together, won’t we?” Pavel Pavlovich peered into his eyes defiantly and at the same time with some strange uneasiness.

“Champagne?”

“What else? It’s not vodka’s turn yet, sir…”

Velchaninov rose unhurriedly, rang for Mavra downstairs, and gave the order.

“For the joy of a happy reunion, sir, after nine years of separation,” Pavel Pavlovich tittered along needlessly and inappropriately. “Now you and you alone are left me as a true friend, sir! Stepan Mikhailovich Bagautov is no more! It’s as the poet said:

The great Patroclus is no more,

Vile Thersites is living still!”⁶

And at the word “Thersites” he jabbed his finger at his own breast.

“You swine, why don’t you explain yourself quicker, I don’t like hints,” Velchaninov thought to himself. Anger seethed in him, for a long time he had barely contained himself.

“Tell me this,” he began vexedly, “if you accuse Stepan Mikhailovich so directly” (now he no longer called him simply Bagautov), “then it seems you should rejoice that your offender is dead; so why are you angry?”

“Why rejoice, sir? What’s there to rejoice at?”

“I’m judging by your feelings.”

“Heh, heh, you’re mistaken about my feelings on that account, sir, as in the wise man’s saying: ‘A dead enemy is good, but a live one is even better,’ hee, hee!”

“But you saw him alive every day for five years, I think, didn’t you have enough of looking?” Velchaninov observed spitefully and impudently.

“But did I… did I know it then, sir?” Pavel Pavlovich suddenly heaved himself up, again as if pouncing from around a corner, even as if with a certain glee at having finally been asked a long-awaited question. “What do you take me for, Alexei Ivanovich?”

And some completely new and unexpected look suddenly flashed in his eyes, which as if completely transformed his spiteful and until then only vilely grimacing face.

“So you really knew nothing!” Velchaninov, perplexed, said with the most sudden amazement.

“So you think I knew, sir? You think I knew! Oh, what a breed—our Jupiters! With you a man is the same as a dog, and you judge everyone by your own paltry nature! There’s for you, sir! Swallow that!” And he banged his fist on the table in rage, but at once got scared at his own banging and looked up timorously.

Velchaninov assumed a dignified air.

“Listen, Pavel Pavlovich, it decidedly makes no difference to me, you must agree, whether you knew or not. If you didn’t know, it does you honor in any case, though… anyhow, I don’t even understand why you’ve chosen me as your confidant…”

“I didn’t mean you… don’t be angry, I didn’t mean you…” Pavel Pavlovich muttered, dropping his eyes.

Mavra came in with the champagne.

“Here it is!” Pavel Pavlovich cried, obviously glad of a way out, “and the glasses, dearie, the glasses— wonderful! Nothing more is required of you, my sweet. Already opened? Honor and glory to you, dear creature! Well, off you go!”

And, cheered up again, he once more looked boldly at Velchaninov.

“And confess,” he suddenly tittered, “that you’re terribly curious about all this, sir, and it by no means ‘decidedly makes no difference,’ as you were pleased to declare, so that you’d even be upset if I got up and left this very moment, sir, without explaining anything.”

“Actually, I wouldn’t be.”

“Oh, you liar!” Pavel Pavlovich’s smile said.

“Well, sir, let’s begin!” and he poured wine in the glasses.

“Let’s drink a toast,” he pronounced, raising his glass, “to the health of our friend, the resting-in-peace Stepan Mikhailovich!”

He raised his glass and drank.

“I won’t drink such a toast,” Velchaninov put his glass down.

“Why’s that? A nice little toast!”

“Listen here: when you came now, you weren’t drunk?”

“I’d had a little. What of it, sir?”